The New Cold War — and How America Can Win
by Timothy Birdnow | January 13th, 2009
It took America the better part of a decade and the loss of over 3,000 American lives to realize we were at war with Al-Qaeda and radical Islam. Now we are coming face-to-face with the reality that we are in a Cold War with Russia.
America believed, somewhat naively, that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union meant the end of the Cold War. We didn't understand that the political system failed in Russia because of the failure of the economic system, but that the people themselves had no experience with Western ways, and the old communist aristocracy was still very much in place. Today Russia is governed by an oligarchy of murdering thugs bent on world power; a refreshing change from the old oligarchy of murdering thugs bent on world power!
We can argue over who lost what, but the reality is that America, exuberant over the demise of the U.S.S.R., decided "mission accomplished" and turned our attention to such critical matters as who was fellating Bill and how our 401K's were doing. Russia under Boris Yeltsin was in serious need of guidance, but the American government, led by a president who did not want any trouble on his watch and a Secretary of State who believed that it was bad that America was the lone Superpower, allowed matters to deteriorate under the bottle-sick Yeltsin.
And that's how the KGB came to take power in Russia; Comrade Putin and his dancing teeth were the only ones capable of maintaining order.
Recently, former Cold Warrior Patrick J. Buchanan penned an op-ed (one of several, actually) bemoaning America's actions in "provoking" another Cold War. Buchanan seems to believe that the "neocons" have acted to provoke the Russians by expanding NATO and seeking to deploy an ABM system in Poland.
One question to Mr. Buchanan: which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Let me remind everyone that former Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev was desperate to stop the American development of a missile defense system.
From Der Spiegel:
Gorbachev before the Politburo
Gorbachev: We have to make concessions on the medium-range missiles. We must do something in Reykjavik if we hope to make any headway. The US wants the negotiating machinery to run dry, but the arms race is overloading our economy. We need a breakthrough.
Gromyko: We cannot just flip-flop 180 degrees. But the deployment of the SS-20 was a major error in our European policy.
Gorbachev: We can no longer treat our security from a purely arithmetical standpoint. If they force a second arms race on us, we will be finished. The loss of our submarine (a Soviet nuclear submarine had just sunk off the Bermuda Islands) has revealed to everyone the condition we are in. And we are now supposed to panic and shout: "We are falling behind, let us rearm?"
What he sought at Reykjavik was not forthcoming, and he famously conceded to his aids "we are finished."
Well, the Soviet Union was finished, but Russia was not, and the new regime never removed the demand that the U.S. not deploy missile defense.
So Buchanan's panic-stricken claim that the deployment of an ABM system in Poland is somehow forcing the Russians to put Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad is somewhat dubious. It also begs the question: just where would the Russians be putting those missiles? We have been planning for decades on deploying this system — or something like it. The Russians have been threatening us with this action for decades in response.
Whether we realize it or not, America is in a Cold War. We may think the Cold War ended with the breakup of the U.S.S.R., but any reading of Russian newspapers should disabuse us of that notion. It would be grossly irresponsible NOT to deploy the ABM system in Poland given the current chilly international climate.
Of course, Barack Obama plans http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=297645696465868 deep cuts in America's nuclear arsenal as well as our missile defense system. http://www.missilethreat.com/archives/id.7086/detail.asp
According to Missilethreat.com, Obama said in a speech before a group called Caucus4Priorities:
I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems.
I will not weaponize space.
I will slow our development of future combat systems . . .
Third, I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal, I will not develop new nuclear weapons; I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material; and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert . . .
How does Obama — or Buchanan, for that matter — think we can achieve this Détente with Russia? We aren't the ones building new nuclear weapons, after all! This is unilateral disarmament, meaning we are relinquishing any hold we may have over them.
But it gets worse; it has recently come to light that our nuclear arsenal is decrepit, and in serious need of upgrading. According to this piece in the Wall Street Journal:
Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. nuclear weapons program has suffered from neglect. Warheads are old. There's been no new warhead design since the 1980s, and the last time one was tested was 1992, when the U.S. unilaterally stopped testing. Gen. Chilton, who heads U.S. Strategic Command, has been sounding the alarm, as has Defense Secretary Robert Gates. So far few seem to be listening.
The U.S. is alone among the five declared nuclear nations in not modernizing its arsenal. The U.K. and France are both doing so. Ditto China and Russia. "We're the only ones who aren't," Gen. Chilton says. Congress has refused to fund the Department of Energy's Reliable Replacement Warhead program beyond the concept stage and this year it cut funding even for that.
and furthermore:
Gen. Chilton pulls out a prop to illustrate his point: a glass bulb about two inches high. "This is a component of a V-61" nuclear warhead, he says. It was in "one of our gravity weapons" — a weapon from the 1950s and '60s that is still in the U.S. arsenal. He pauses to look around the Journal's conference table. "I remember what these things were for. I bet you don't. It's a vacuum tube. My father used to take these out of the television set in the 1950s and '60s down to the local supermarket to test them and replace them."
So, we are still using VACUUM TUBES in many of our weapons systems!
Meanwhile, the Russians have been steadily building a state-of-the-art nuclear stockpile, benefiting from the money they saved by not having to pay to decommission the old Soviet arsenal, and they have big plans for the future. They have been able to do so in part because of a Clinton-era policy funding the Russian Nuclear Cities.
According to Kenneth Timmerman in this 1999 article in the American Spectator:
Despite the collapse of the Russian economy, the Russian government continues to develop new nuclear submarines and new missiles. Russia's latest missile, the Topol-M (SS-27), went into service last December. According to Yuri Solomonom, general constructor at the Moscow Institute of Heat Technology, which designed it, the SS-27 was conceived to "effectively penetrate" the antimissile systems "of any state," and could be converted to a multiple warhead missile if Russia discards START II. It is the only strategic missile in the world — including the U.S. — that has a maneuverable nuclear re-entry vehicle to allow it to defeat anti-ballistic interceptors.
The SS-27 is not the only troubling nuclear weapons project that appears to have taken priority over the Russian economy. Since 1991, the Russians have pumped more than $6 billion into building a gigantic underground military complex, designed to withstand a direct nuclear blast, at Yamantau Mountain in the Urals. "The Russians have refused to provide any credible explanation for the purpose of this site," says Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), who claims to have raised Yamantau at every meeting he has had with the Russian government over the past four years. The underground complex is so big the Russians had to build two entire, 60,000-person cities, known as Beloretsk 15&16, just to support the workers building it down below. Work at Yamantau continues day and night, even now. "This is a project that is so secret that only the upper levels of the Russian government know about it," Weldon said. "It is extremely destabilizing. It means that they are thinking about having a successful first strike capability." Theories abound as to what the site might house — a secret nuclear weapons production plant, an ABM site, a giant ground-based laser, or another directed-energy weapon. Even the CIA doesn't know for sure. The reinforced underground bunkers take up 400 square miles, "an area as large as Washington, D.C. inside the Beltway," Weldon said.
Where do the Russians get all the money for such mega-projects? One source is clear: the U.S. taxpayer. Since 1993, the Clinton administration's misguided nonproliferation programs have pumped more than $2.5 billion into Russia's military-industrial sector. Now, lots more is on the way.
So, the Russians have been aggressively pursuing a powerful nuclear arsenal when they had no enemy. They've also been pursuing new nuclear submarines, capable of attacking from sea in addition to testing new ballistic missiles. Who, pray tell, are they building these weapons to threaten?
Those weapons are not intended to stop a rogue nuke or terrorist organization. Oh, and the Russians were doing this BEFORE George W. Bush and the Neocons came to power.
Furthermore, the Russian invasion of Georgia was clearly planned well in advance and was intended to illustrate Russia's ability to project power. That the Russians provoked Georgia into action to justify an invasion seems likely and claims of Georgian atrocities were greatly exaggerated — as even the Daily Kos admits.
Russia has been successful where the Soviet Union was not because of the wealth gained from control of energy, and Putin's ambition had been to use energy to dominate Europe. His "successor" President Medvedev has not changed this plan, and has even threatened to annex a large swath of the Arctic in the quest for energy dominance. Russia has already tried to strangle Ukraine via a boycott of natural gas and has threatened to do likewise to Belarus. The invasion of Georgia was largely propelled by Russian hegemonic energy ambitions; the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan gas pipeline through Georgia bypassed both Russia and Iran, and made it impossible for Russia to strangle her Western neighbors. During the war, Russia bombed the pipeline in several places to close it.
Russia has likely aided Syria in disposing of Iraqi WMD`s, (does anyone remember the Soviet special forces engineers going into the Bekaa Valley outside of U.N. jurisdiction during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon recently?). They have helped to arm Iran, given them nuclear material, and have been conducting joint naval exercises in the Caribbean with Venezuela. They have undermined our policies worldwide with glee.
Does anybody seriously doubt we are in a Cold War?
It took America the better part of a decade and the loss of over 3,000 American lives to realize we were at war with Al-Qaeda and radical Islam. THEY always knew themselves to be at war with us. Now we are coming face-to-face with the reality that we are in a Cold War with Russia, yet many refuse to believe this.
We cannot win the War on Terror if the Russians are allowed to knife us in the back. An honest understanding of what they are doing is necessary for any of our policies to work. We cannot wish this away. Our policies must be based on sound reasoning and a clear focus on what we must do.
The key to this is money. The power of the Medvedev/Putin oligarchs comes from their wealth, and that is their Achilles heel. As I pointed out here the drop in oil prices is seriously damaging to Russian adventurism. Couple that with the rapidly declining population and you have a nation held hostage by economic forces. We can manipulate that. Our own economic woes are hurting Russia, as well, since there was a not-inconsiderable investment by Russians in America.
In fact, the collapse of the U.S. housing market has Russia's economy on the skids. Consider this bit of news:
Russian markets fell 17 percent Tuesday, the biggest drop since 1998, bringing market levels to their lowest point since 2005. Gazeta.ru published these illustrative numbers at the moment of the unscheduled early closures of the dollar-denominated MICEX and ruble-denominated RTS stock exchanges: shares of VTB dropped by 32.5%, Sberbank (the largest bank by deposits in Russia) 20.9%, FSK 27.6%, Transneft 24.1%, Tatneft 15%, Lukoil 13.5%, Norilsk Nickel 8.2%, Severstal 8.7%, Gazpromneft 8.2%, etc.
Wednesday brought some clarity when Russia's Central Bank announced that, starting on September 18, the rates of the minimum obligation reserves for credit organizations dealing with private parties (in rubles) will be lowered by 4 percent, from 5.5% to 1.5%, while for obligations of non-residential banks (in rubles and foreign currencies) the rates will drop from 8.5% to 4.5%, and for all other obligations, from 6% to 2%. Later, starting in 2009, these rates will be slowly increased.
It is clear that the invasion of Georgia helped precipitate this. According to the piece in Russiablog:
No news agency in Russia directly linked the market failure to the war in Georgia, despite the fact that a huge outflow of foreign capital followed the recent rise of international tensions in the Caucuses. The usually anti-government newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets [Moscow Komsomol - not to be confused with the popular tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda - RB] published a short front page article titled "USA is Satisfied with the Failure of the Russian Market and Withdrawal of the Capital from Russia." The MK mocked William Burns, US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, for saying that Russian markets were paying for the "unwise decision of the Russian government to invade Georgia." According to Burns, in part due to the war in Georgia, the Russian stock markets lost a third of their value. However, the Russian stock market began its decline well before the war started in August, and was already showing signs of volatility even as global oil prices reached unprecedented levels in July 2008.
Most Russian media seem to regard the market failure as a combined result of the financial crisis in America and controversial statements of the Russian government regarding metallurgic companies and oil industry tax cuts — not the war. In the United States the subject of Russia's market collapse was not much in the news at all, buried under the flood of news from a closely contested presidential election and Wall Street's own problems.
So, we CAN use economic leverage to move Russia. Deploying an ABM system in Poland is both necessary and prudent, as is expanding NATO to Ukraine and Georgia. If the Russians scream about a new cold war, it is immaterial; their behavior legitimatizes our response. They will continue to saber-rattle (and wield that saber) as long as they have the ability to do so. Real change in Russia will not come from Détente, despite what Pat Buchanan believes. Economic collapse forced change in the past, and it can be used to force change again. Russia will continue to threaten us as long as the Putin cabal are in power. We can drive them out by doing what we have been doing. Their power is based on their personal control of wealth, and if that wealth should be taken away they will be forced out-or at least forced to act more civilized.
This time, let`s do it right!
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